STARTX(1) General Commands Manual STARTX(1)
NAME
startx - initialize an X session
SYNOPSIS
startx [ [ client ] options ... ] [ -- [ server ] [ display ] options
... ]
DESCRIPTION
The startx script is a front end to xinit(1) that provides a somewhat
nicer user interface for running a single session of the X Window Sys-
tem. It is often run with no arguments.
Arguments immediately following the startx command are used to start a
client in the same manner as xinit(1). The special argument '--' marks
the end of client arguments and the beginning of server options. It may
be convenient to specify server options with startx to change them on a
per-session basis. Some examples of specifying server arguments follow;
consult the manual page for your X server to determine which arguments
are legal.
startx -- -depth 16
startx -- -dpi 100
startx -- -layout Multihead
Note that in the Debian system, what many people traditionally put in
the .xinitrc file should go in .xsession instead; this permits the same
X environment to be presented whether startx, xdm, or xinit is used to
start the X session. All discussion of the .xinitrc file in the xinit(1)
manual page applies equally well to .xsession. Keep in mind that .xini-
trc is used only by xinit(1) and completely ignored by xdm(1).
To determine the client to run, startx first checks the environment
variable XINITRC for a filename. If that variable is unset, or does not
contain a filename, it looks for a file called .xinitrc in the user's
home directory. If that is not found, it uses the file xinitrc in the
xinit library directory. If command line client options are given, they
override this behavior and revert to the xinit(1) behavior. To deter-
mine the server to run, startx checks the environment variable XSERVERRC
for a filename. If that variable is unset, or does not contain a file-
name, it looks for a file called .xserverrc in the user's home direc-
tory. If that is not found, it uses the file xserverrc in the xinit li-
brary directory. If command line server options are given, they over-
ride this behavior and revert to the xinit(1) behavior. Users rarely
need to provide a .xserverrc file. See the xinit(1) manual page for
more details on the arguments.
The system-wide xinitrc and xserverrc files are found in the
/etc/X11/xinit directory.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
DISPLAY This variable gets set to the name of the dis-
play to which clients should connect. Note
that this gets set, not read.
XAUTHORITY This variable, if not already defined, gets set
to $(HOME)/.Xauthority. This is to prevent the
X server, if not given the -auth argument, from
automatically setting up insecure host-based
authentication for the local host. See the
Xserver(1) and Xsecurity(7) manual pages for
more information on X client/server authentica-
tion.
XINITRC This variable should contain the location of an
xinitrc file. If unset, $(HOME)/.xinitrc or
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc will be used.
XSERVERRC This variable should contain the location of an
xserver file. If unset, $(HOME)/.xinitrc or
/etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc will be used.
FILES
$(HOME)/.xinitrc Client to run. Typically a shell script which
runs many programs in the background.
$(HOME)/.xserverrc Server to run. The default is X.
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc Client to run if the user has no .xinitrc file.
/etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc Server to run if the user has no .xserverrc
file.
SEE ALSO
xinit(1), X(7), Xserver(1), Xorg(1), xorg.conf(5)
X Version 11 xinit 1.4.2 STARTX(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Sat Oct 3 05:39:16 CEST 2026.